Lisa Montgomery sentenced to death for murder of dog breeder Bobbi Jo Stinnett, and kidnapping of Stinnett's unborn child.

Thanks to Jen and Yes Biscuit for reminding me of the worst ‘potential puppy buyer’ scenario of all time – the murder of Bobbi Jo Stinnett, a Missouri Rat Terrier breeder, and the theft of her unborn child.

“Montgomery met Stinnett through an online chat room and — using a fictitious name — expressed interest in a rat-terrier dog, a type she bred and sold. Montgomery allegedly obtained directions to Stinnett’s home and visited her there Thursday. Hours later, officials have said, Stinnett’s mother found her body.

The baby, who has since been named Victoria Jo, was located in Montgomery’s custody the following day, police said. She was taken to Stormont-Vail Regional Health Care Center in Topeka, Kansas, and was released Monday night after being united with her father, Zeb Stinnett.”

Lisa Montgomery had a long history of feigned pregnancies, and was a ‘hanger on’ in several rat terrier chat rooms. Bobbi Jo Stinnet had apparently even once defended Montgomery when she was “accused of misrepresenting the pedigrees of her dogs” – source: http://karisable.com/stinnett.htm

Montgomery used the same rat terrier chatroom where she had met Stinnett to arrange the meeting that would lead to Stinnett’s death.

On Wednesday, December 16, 2004, Lisa, posing as “Darlene Fisher” contacted Bobbie Jo in an Internet chat room under the pretext of wanting to buy a rat terrier. Bobbie Jo gave her directions to her house and they agreed to meet the next day.

Like most of us have done in the past – or continue to do now – Stinnett didn’t check ‘Darlene Fisher’s’ credentials or other information before giving her directions to her home. The next day, Stinnett’s mother discovered her daughter’s body dead in pool of blood, with fistfulls of blond hair and the fetus removed from her body.

“Prosecutors said Montgomery used a rope to choke Stinnett, who was eight months pregnant. But Stinnett was conscious and trying to defend herself as Montgomery used a kitchen knife to cut the baby girl from the womb, prosecutors said.

Montgomery was arrested the day after the killing after spending the morning showing off the infant as her own in her hometown of Melvern, Kan.”

On or about December 16, 2004, at Skidmore, in Nodaway County, in the Western District of Missouri and elsewhere, LISA M. MONTGOMERY, the defendant, a/k/a Darlene Fischer, a/k/a Fischer4kids, willfully and unlawfully kidnapped, abducted, carried away, and held Victoria Jo Stinnett, and willfully transported Victoria Jo Stinnett in interstate commerce from Skidmore, Missouri, across the state line to Melvern, Kansas, the actions of the defendant resulting in the death of Bobbie Jo Stinnett.

On Oct. 22, 2007, a jury found Lisa Montgomery guilty, and on Friday, April 4, 2008, U.S. District Judge Gary Fenner gave Lisa Montgomery the death sentence, making her the third woman on federal death row.

Montgomery remains on death row to this day, and has appealed her conviction.

I followed this case closely. Mrs. Stinnett had posted photos of herself on the web showing the dogs and on the road w/the dogs, including captions about how obviously pregnant she was. It’s not something anyone would have given a second thought at the time but in hindsight, it made her a target of this evil woman. While we can’t allow ourselves to think that every person who wants to come over and meet dogs is deranged and violent, I think we have to take a lesson from Mrs. Stinnett’s tragic death and realize that unfortunately, those people ARE out there.
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I think we have to take a lesson from Mrs. Stinnett’s tragic death and realize that unfortunately, those people ARE out there.

I agree, and it’s why I blogged this. We all – myself included – assume nothing like this will ever happen to us, until it does. If it takes an extreme example to make people be more vigilant, then so be it.

I just read the Pet Connection blog about stolen pets, and realized that this is really just one more facet of the same thing.

That happened about 15 miles from where I was attending undergrad at the time. The entire community was shocked. I remember sitting in my res hall lounge just watching the news. It is so crazy thinking that someone would do something like.

Even though it is obviously not college related, we used it in programming to remind people to be careful what they are putting on the internet and who they are contacting.

Regarding people stealing dogs, obviously the bottom line is $$$$. If people didn’t make the big bucks selling dogs, it wouldn’t be so tempting. Most lay people will go to backyard breeder and have no troubles getting an unpapered dog if they can save 1000-2000 dollars.
I know that there are expenses involved when dog breeding is done properly, vet care, c-sections ( on certain breeds) ai’s, genetic testing show cost, advertising etc. Not all these costs are incurred in every breeding, once tests are done they are done, once a championship is obtained it is done.
When I got my first akita in 1985 (yes a long long time ago) I pd 650.00 now most go for over 2000.00, vet costs have gone up but not that much, show entries have gone up but not by much. Never had a professional handler so not sure.
Using akitas as an example my last girl came from a litter of 10 at 2000.00 each that’s 20,000.00!!!
No wonder it is so tempting for theives to steal dogs.
No wonder there are so many dogs in rescue too, do you know how many people are of the mindset, I paid big bucks for this dog, I need to make my money back so I will breed it. (thank goodness for breeders with non breeding contracts.
Thieves only steal valuables…purebred dogs are valuable and big business, even if they are not stolen to be bred they can sell a purebred for big bucks and when they paid nothing it’s all profit.
And as buyers I think we contribute just as much, I would pay the same for my dogs all over again they are worth every penny to me. But really what justifies the big price tags?